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by iKevinShah
2089 days ago
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One thing that comments so far down here do not highlight is that there was a recent change in the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act where there were changes in the amount of money / limit of administrative expenditure that can be allocated to foreign contributions to 20 percent from the previous 50 percent and, Enforcement Directorate had issued a show-cause notice to Amnesty International India recently (I think in 2019). So while yeah, online discussions mostly conclude to simplest possible explanation i.e. authoritarian / totalitarian / nationalism / and what not - This notice comes just days after FCRA was changed in India, that might be the pushing point / breakpoint towards closure rather than "Government Witchhunt", because Amnesty has been getting the show-causes notices for some time now. |
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FCRA was amended with a specific aim in mind. Hindu Nationalist groups have been vocal about religious conversions. FCRA was recently used to target 4 Christian organizations and choke their foreign funding [1].
It is a witch-hunt specifically because Amnesty was harassed by Delhi Police about why they were probing Delhi Religious Riots 2020 and had released the report about the Police excesses in the same? It was after this that Delhi Police targeted Amnesty using FCRA law. [2]
Amnesty India's former head put it succintly: "It has become a crime to work on human rights in India." "Amnesty has not been convicted. It has not even been put on trial in court. Shutdown refers to inability to pay salaries because accounts frozen for second time without any determination of guilt." [3]
FCRA is just bureaucratic powerslam without going through courts to target organization that asks for transparency. India joins highly regarding company of Russia in pushing Amnesty from their country.
[1] - https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/government-suspends-f...
[2] - https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/amnesty-report-on...
[3] - https://twitter.com/Aakar__Patel/status/1310844601767309312